Well, how about that. Want to know why there's so much oil still spewing from around the cap?

[gristy]

From this evening's article in the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — The Coast Guard commander in charge of the federal response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico warned on Sunday that even if the flow of crude was stopped by summer, it could take well into autumn — and maybe much longer— to deal with the slick spreading relentlessly across the gulf.

The assessment came as the sheer volume of oil gushing from the out-of-control well forced BP to temporarily halt its attempts to capture more oil by closing all four vents on a capping device, said a technician working on the operation. Even with three vents still open, the cap is capturing so much oil — now more than 10,000 barrels a day — that the company does not have adequate equipment at hand to process it all.

Well, I guess we can't blame them. They thought they would only have to process 5,000 barrels a day! :sarcasm:

:banghead:

[Angry Dragon]

1. But ... but.........we are prepared for worst case

The lies never stop

[L0oniX]

2. Sick mutha f*ckas.

[Duer 157099]

3. This makes those 50,000 barrels a day WAGs sound reasonable

Since they're only capturing a small % and that's 10,000 BARRELS per day? WOW.

[harun]

4. What do they mean by process it all? Aren't they just dumping in a tanker?

[Statistical]

5. HAve to seperate natural gas from oil in controlled manner.

An uncontrolled expansion of natural gas would be disastrous. So they need to maintain enough pressure at the pipe end to seperate natural gas out of the oil, move oil to tanker and pump natural gas to flare (where it burns).

However I thought the ship they were using could handle 15,000 bpd.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. How do they get all the disperants out of the oil?

Can they refine it with all those other chemicals in it?

[Statistical]

7. No idea. however for the cut & cap there is no dispersents in the flow

The cap is directly over the BOP and disperesents are sprayed into the oil that is outside the cap.

Due to flow pressure there is nothing flowing back into the cap, not seawater and not any chemicals.

Essentially what is going up the riser up is almost completely hydrocarbons. Now they are injecting methanol into the oil to prevent freezing but methanol has very low boiling point. It likely evaporates out.

[Fly by night]

8. I don't give a shit if they can't process ANY of it.

Just as long as they get every drop of it out of the Gulf.

I heard that same statement this morning on ATC and thought: "Now that can't be right."

Sure (and sadly) enough, it appears to be.

[Statistical]

9. "Process it" IS getting it out of the gulf.

See post #6.

An uncontrolled release of natural gas is what sunk the Deep Water Horizon.

When gas goes from being under 10,00 psi of pressure to 10 psi of pressure is expands and expands a lot. If that expansion isn't controlled and the gas isn't burned the results are disastrous.

I wonder if they can get a second ship there and convert the riser pipe into a Y-pipe sending half the flow to each ship?

[spanone]

10. because it's not working and bp is once again lying to everyone.

[Ganja Ninja]

11. They would have had it there already but they needed the money

to pay for their new ad campaign.